Twitter Gets Serious on Android

The Cover app for Android lets users choose what apps to place on the home screen.

Cover

Twitter is attempting to better appeal to the Android audience. On Monday, Twitter said it acquired Cover, an Android lock-screen app that automatically picks which apps are shown on the home screen depending on where you are.

The company is Twitter’s first Android-specific acquisition, a kind of investment that it has yet to make for iOS-specific companies. It suggests that the Twitter experience on Android could become distinct from other mobile platforms.

The announcement, made on Cover’s blog post, was short on details. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to disclose the terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“Twitter, like Cover, believes in the incredible potential of Android. They share our vision that smartphones can be a lot smarter ― more useful and more contextual ― and together we’re going to make that happen,” said Cover in its blog post.

It is unclear how exactly Cover will fit into Twitter’s overall strategy. Cover essentially customizes the user’s home screen, making different apps readily available, by recognizing where you are. For example, while at work the home screen may show your email and news apps while at home it will switch to Facebook, Secret and Instagram.

The acquisition also reinforces Twitter’s mobile-first approach. Over 75% of Twitter users access the service through their mobile devices. As more and more apps compete for the user’s attention, Cover’s acquisition could help keep Twitter top of mind.

Earlier this month, news came out that Twitter had lost Sara Haider, one of Twitter’s early engineers who worked on Android. She left the company for Secret.

The Twitter spokeswoman also declined to disclose how many people from Cover will be joining the short messaging service. The three co-founders—Todd Jackson, Edward Ho and Gordon Luk–were most recently at Facebook, Google and a games startup called Goodhustle prior to starting Cover.

Cover launched in October 2013. Its blog post said it has reached “hundreds of thousands” of users since. The Google Play store puts the app’s installs within a range of 100,000 to 500,000.